In the construction industry, doors are generally purchased from a specialty mill with the doors pre-hung within their surrounding doorjambs. As part of the finish construction, a pre-hung door unit, which is a door and its surrounding doorjamb, is centered within a rough construction door frame and are then plumbed to square using shims. When it is time for painting, the painters remove the door from the doorjamb by pulling the door hinge pins and placing the door in a central area for painting with a paint sprayer. Thus, it is common in both home and commercial construction for painters to paint numerous doors at the same time.
There are numerous methods and devices used in the industry for supporting doors in a manner that allows for efficient painting using a paint sprayer. A very common low-tech approach is to arrange the doors in an accordion fashion by lightly nailing a connecting piece of wood between the tops of adjacent doors. Often, a painter will use paint stir sticks or similar thin scraps of lumber to connected the doors needed to be painted in a line. This requires a ladder for standing high enough to hammer down into the tops of the doors. In this manner, the painter can arrange the doors in an alternating, accordion-shaped line and then proceed down each side of the line using a paint sprayer to spray both sides of the doors as well as the hinge and latch ends of each door. The door hinges are either taped-off or removed during the painting process. If the hinges are removed before painting then there is a risk that paint buildup in the hinge area can adversely affect the door fit within the doorjambs once the painted door is reinstalled.
Door stands are commonly sold in paint supply stores for securing doors in an accordion line for painting. For example, Warner Manufacturing Company makes a door stand called Quicktruss that is a ninety-degree L-shaped metal truss with metal teeth on each end for hammering into the tops of the doors. Other companies make similar door trusses. There are two distinct disadvantages of using commercial trusses or scrap lumber to connect the tops of the doors. First, a ladder must be used to affix the door supports. This is cumbersome and also more prone to promoting injury through falls. Second, solid core doors may not be securely held with just top attachments. For example, many users of commercial door stand trusses drill their own holes in the trusses for using screws to secure heavy doors in the accordion line because the metal teeth are prone to slippage with heavier, solid doors.
In addition to simple door trusses, there are also several carousel-type devices and other complicated, expensive door holders used in the industry. The complexity and cost of these systems can be a significant disadvantage. For example, Mr. LongArm, Inc. sells a carousel-type multi-purpose door rack under the brand name Rack-n-Paint. The rack is relatively expensive and requires the painter to affix the top and bottom edges of the door to the carousel and then maintain a balanced load on the rack during use. Another example of a more expensive painting system is the Door Rack Painter found at www.doorrackpainter.com. This system utilizes racks for holding numerous doors at the same time after the doors have been painted. The system requires inserting rods into the top and bottom of the door and then turning the turning the door from one side to the other while painting and then storing the painted door in a rack fixture. For normal sized doors this system requires two people to turn the doors.
There are also several prior art patents that disclose door painting devices and fixtures. U.S. Pat. No. 5,164,011 (Ray) discloses a door painting fixture that holds a door in a vertical position for painting. The fixture requires inserting pins into the top and bottom of the door and then connecting the pins to laterally extended top and bottom horizontal arms. The door can be rotated about a vertical axis for painting. U.S. Pat. No. 5,551,980 (Turnbo) discloses a holder for supporting doors for painting or other type of treatment. The holder uses hinges that are affixed to the door and a support stand for securing the door while painting. The hinges are screwed into the door and bolted to the stand. U.S. Pat. No. 6,702,130 (Carlilse) discloses another door painting rack similar to the one disclosed by Ray. The Carlilse rack uses pins and horizontal arms to spin a door about a vertical axis. Like the Ray fixture, the Carlilse rack requires the user to physically remove the doors from the rack prior to painting additional doors. There are numerous other prior art references disclosing door painting systems. Most of these systems use some form of pin and rack system for spinning a door.
There exists a need in the art for a simple device that will allow a painter to quickly and efficiently paint multiple doors at a time. The device should be simple, cost-effective, and easy to use. The device should not require time-consuming set up and should allow for a single person to quickly paint multiple doors. The present invention provides such a device.